Winners of the 2016 Learning Environments Australasia Awards were revealed on 30 May at the Learning Environments Australasia Conference in Melbourne.

Renowned school building specialists, Hayball received the top prize of the program, taking the Overall Winner award as well as a category prize for their Learning Project for Caulfield Grammar School in Victoria which they completed in association with LEaRN, The University of Melbourne.

The project involved injecting a prefabricated building designed for purposeful and differentiated learning on each of Caufield Grammar’s three campuses across Melbourne, including its Wheelers Hill, Caulfield and Malvern Campuses.The buildings adopt the concepts of the ‘sticky campus’ and sequential learning, allowing students to move through the spaces progressively as projects develop and the need for a new environment arises (more about the project below).

The Learning Project is one of a few innovative school projects Hayball is working on at the moment that shake the traditional model for educational architecture, the other in the pipeline is Victoria’s first vertical school at South Melbourne Primary School.

Innovation in educational design was a major talking point of the Learning Environments Australasia Conference, which gathered some of Australia’s finest architects in the sector under one roof. Vertical schools in the context of the growing city and the end of the sprawling single-storey development were also debated, prompting Hayball Director Richard Leonard to suggest that Australian educational design is moving away from the “fortress school.”

"Land in the inner city is always a challenge and that means putting more students onto sites," he told Fairfax Media.

“We are going to have to get used to a different idea of what school is."

"We have to rethink how the school can share with the city and how the city can be part of the school by using public parks, gymnasiums and the community getting use of the school facilities like art rooms and technology spaces."

The design for South Melbourne Primary School by Hayball. Image: Hayball

Vertical schools are also being designed in other parts of Australia. An international competition to design NSW’s first high-rise school in Parramatta was recently won by Grimshaw Architects and BVN Architecture, and their design for the new Arthur Phillip High School and neighbouring Parramatta Public School is currently being assessed by the NSW Planning Department.

The design for Arthur Phillip High School and neighbouring Parramatta Public School

But innovation isn’t just about going up. The 2016 Learning Environments Australasia Awards celebrated good educational design in all shape and sizes, with some 20 category awards and commendations handed out to Australia’s best education sector architects.

The 2016 Regional Awards

OVERALL WINNER

The Learning Project for Caulfield Grammar School by Hayball (in association with LEaRN, The University of Melbourne)

Photography by Dianna Snape

About the project

The Learning Project evolved from the masterplanning for Caulfield Grammar’s three campuses in metropolitan Melbourne, developed by Hayball in 2013. It involves a project being developed at each campus to facilitate a shift towards bespoke facilities for new generation learning.

A prefabricated building designed for purposeful and differentiated learning has been introduced to each campus, with 33 exceptional features. Each feature is pivotal to providing an engaging learning experience for students spanning the ages of 5-18 years, and the clear purpose of each offers teaching staff significant choice in how lessons are delivered.

Critical to the interior design is the concept for three differentiated ‘studios’, each of which intersects with a central ‘sticky’ hub. The concept explores a sequential approach to planning and the process of project-based learning, allowing students to move through the spaces progressively as projects develop and the need for a new environment arises.

The design removes traditional staff workspaces, avoids duplication of spaces and uses purposeful furniture to support the full range of learning activities. The outcome is a choice of settings which students and staff share and move between, negotiating use and timing in both a planned and impromptu way.

Each of the learning settings emerged from the cross pollination of ideas across campus communities, as activities already happening discretely in pockets across the school were shared in the consultation process. The campuses were learning from each other. Catering for diverse age ranges and imbuing a whole-of-school vision across discrete campuses were key challenges which were met by the comprehensive engagement of key stakeholders and decisions based on evidence and research. As a prototype for introducing a new pedagogy, the non-permanent nature of the buildings acts as a vehicle/catalyst for change, enabling the school and designers to test settings and spaces with diminished risk of designing for a new pedagogy.

The project outcomes will valuably inform future key high investment projects at the school. The project is also the subject of broader research. Both Hayball and the school are partners in E21LE, an ARC Linkage Project with the University of Melbourne to evaluate the educative value of contemporary physical learning environments.

CATEGORY 1: ENTIRE NEW SCHOOL

WINNER

Officer Secondary College by Clarke Hopkins Clarke

COMMENDATION
Golden Square Primary School by K2LD Architects

CATEGORY 2: NEW CONSTRUCTION l MAJOR FACILITY

JOINT WINNERS

Montagne Centre, by Y2 Architecture

Woodleigh Homesteads, by Law Architects

COMMENDATIONS

Ivanhoe Senior Years Centre, by McBride Charles Ryan

Guildford Grammar School Preparatory School Development, by Christou Design Group